Pulsatilla | Chapter 16/? [Part One]
Pulsatilla
Author: love_cassiopeia
Summary: A complete mess was what Jung Yunho became after his beloved wife’s death. Trapped in a permanent state of isolation and loneliness, Yunho summons his knowledge on biology in hopes of recreating his wife in the form of an artificial human. However, the experiment goes terribly wrong and instead creates a male who has all his wife’s looks and qualities, one who he eventually decides to name ‘Jaejoong.’ Coping with the idyllic memories Jaejoong brings back of his wife, Yunho tries his best not to fall in love with his creation, knowing that the love he brings along is not the real thing-or is it?
Rated: PG-13 - NC-17
Warning(s): NC-17 material, language
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing(s): YunJae
Chapter 16: Fragile (Part One)
Definition: The Pulsatilla is a deciduous perennial flower native to Europe and Asia that grows in the leftover nutrients of a dead plant. It is usually grown to replace another plant. It is capable of curing diseases and may be used in remedies.
[Please leave your comments on part 2 of the chapter. I've disabled the comments on part 1]
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F r a g i l e
It felt like a familiar routine to him, walking into the lobby of the apartment complex he had visited so many times in the past. He often found a certain luxury to his boss’s home, for it was spacious, relatively new-not to mention furnished by the person who was the epitome of a housewife. Although his request of anticipating to stay in the apartment after the passing of Yunho’s wife was denied, Changmin felt somewhat indebted to the penthouse for staging the friendship he willingly shared with his employer. After Seulki’s death, he was the one who courageously stepped up to offer Yunho the solace he desperately needed. When Yunho lamented day and night about his dreadful life and what he had done to make Seulki run away so eagerly, he was there to straighten him up in hopes that his life would take on a new, healthier direction. When Yunho wanted to scream violently in aggravation in the aftermath of the death, he was the one who willingly lend out an ear to listen to. The assistant felt rather peculiar that he had become so close with a man as inept as his boss, but considering he always liked to label himself resourceful and helpful in more ways than one, Changmin knew that when Yunho’s troubles came along, he would be able to do whatever he could to bring order back to the turbulence which consumed Yunho constantly.
Now, struck with a problem that seemed completely familiar-yet one that involved a completely different person-Changmin knew he had no other choice but to step in to offer the help he had once offered after Seulki’s passing. He knew Yunho was a weak man (you couldn’t tell from looking at him from the outside, but you could easily interpret it after spending mere seconds with him), and obviously had too many decisions he would rather not make lined up perfectly outside his front door. Due to this, Changmin knew he was the one responsible for offering another mind-one which wasn’t too infected with the confusing concept of love-to contribute to Yunho’s decision-making in hopes of rearranging everything so it would at least look better on the outside.
The death of Seulki was one which was relatively difficult to understand, and surprisingly, so was Jaejoong’s kidnapping and captivation. The two stories certainly had their differences, but nevertheless revolved around the same fickle concept. Watching such ridiculous (he felt guilty, labeling it ridiculous, but there was no other word) occurrences ignite before his eyes, Changmin came to the evident conclusion that yes, love was as brittle as a snowflake that fell from the murky heavens in the winter, perhaps even more so. And Yunho-Changmin was positive that Yunho was as impulsive as any man could get. Surely he was smart at the office and played a crucial role in the company, but he was as clueless in the field of love as a politician in a match of wrestling. Now, since he had no idea just how to deal properly with love, he acted without thinking, destroying the fragile snowflake before it even had the opportunity join the large heaps of snow.
Changmin understood it was more than puzzling for Yunho, having his wife recreated as a male who breathed and talked exactly like a human, and he must admit, he himself was puzzled as well. Humans were put on this world by a process created by love, reproduction, and care. Certainly they didn’t just pop out of some chamber with a fully developed body and mind with no anecdotes of their childhood to tell. Changmin knew that if he was faced with the excruciating task of having to love someone as obscure as Jaejoong, he would’ve given up entirely and gotten himself killed in the process (well, just mentally, perhaps).
On the other hand, he didn’t want to condemn Yunho for creating Jaejoong, because he knew Yunho missed his wife terribly and was unable to live a single day without feeling like a monster. If he himself had been through the agonizing process, he knew he would have the same pain boiling within him, haunting him at the most ungodly of hours, stealing even the urge to eat and sleep away from him. But since Changmin had not experienced such an ordeal, he couldn’t fully submit the things he was assuming into the things he was saying. After all, one must play the unnerving game of love before experiencing its cruel penalties.
Although he wasn’t exactly sure if he was assuming the correct things or not, Changmin clearly knew that Yunho had resurrected Jaejoong out of pure desperation. He knew Yunho believed that a part of Seulki still existed within Jaejoong, though it was quite absurd of a fact to believe in. Changmin was sure that if a store had a time machine in stock, Yunho would’ve bought it regardless of the price and travelled back in time as fast as he could to reunite with Seulki. But because such innovations were in absence, the man had to improvise, right? And improvising may not exactly turn out as beautifully as planned.
If Changmin had an entire day to ask his boss questions, then he certainly would have. The most grave of the questions however, was whether Yunho wanted to prevent his wife from dying, therefore never meeting Jaejoong. Every inch of Jaejoong was programmed to replicate Seulki, but to Yunho's (and his) surprise, Jaejoong became his own person after living in the world. The memories he created with Yunho were memories of his own, not that of Seulki’s. The things he’d learned and the experiences he’d lived through were different from Seulki’s-which in the end, technically made him a completely different person. Changmin was unsure whether or not Yunho had the guts to return to his days with Seulki when in reality, he treasured Jaejoong more than anyone and anything and loved him as much as he once loved Seulki. If Yunho was to use the time machine Changmin imagined, he would be faced with the fact that he would never discover the love with Jaejoong-or even meet him, for that matter.
…Those were the hodgepodge of thoughts that submerged Changmin as he walked through the lobby of the apartment complex. He was bestowed with the task of fetching a certain document from Yunho’s lab-one which would play an important role in speeding up the lethargic process of the experiments. Initially, it was Yunho who had asked him to stay behind in the lab to accompany Jaejoong while he made the trip, but after seeing how worried he was, Changmin was resolute to have Yunho by his lover’s side while he endeavoured upon the ask himself. After the receiving of house keys, Changmin rushed over to the penthouse as fast as he could, hoping to make it back to the facility in time.
As he unlocked the door to the ample penthouse, Changmin was disenchanted to find that Yunho had left the television on-probably before heading out the door a few mornings ago in a rush. Changmin rolled his eyes in sympathy and obtained the remote in fear that Yunho’s electricity bill would go insane if comedy shows kept rerunning on the large fifty-inch LCD screen (probably watched by ghosts while he was gone). After finishing up with the TV, Changmin gave a curious glance towards the den just because he was accustomed to checking out what type of condition it was in every time he came here. He was appalled to find it completely different from how it was before when Jaejoong occupied the apartment. Documents and files scattered across the floor along with bottles of opened but not finished beer and torn letters and bills. Changmin was staggered to see such a sight, since Jaejoong had only left a few days ago, and here Yunho was, already going back to his habits of living like a caveman.
As he traveled deeper into the modern, lavish house (which was now pretty much ruined by Yunho’s fixations that arose whenever someone wasn't there to pick up after him), Changmin heard the curious sound of water running. He followed the sound and was led into a bathroom and then to a sink-which had been left running exactly like the TV in the living room. With a sigh and yet another eye roll, Changmin turned the faucet off and assured Yunho’s water bill wouldn’t rise insanely as well. He understood Yunho would have to do him a favour in return, since he had saved him quite a lot of money, being his temporary maid (Yunho was always in need of a maid-if not, a wife like Seulki or Jaejoong) and taking care of his home by doing even the simplest of things.
Upon departing the bathroom, Changmin travelled deeper into the penthouse, searching for the lab which Yunho had kept all his experiments in and where he had made one of his greatest discoveries. The penthouse certainly wasn’t small, but it wasn’t extremely big either, so it was effortless to find the door to the lab next to his small office which he had locked for a particular reason Changmin would easily infer.
Digging through his pockets, he found the key that Yunho had previously given him at the government facility that would provide his way through the locked door. Changmin stared at the key inquisitively upon finding it, and then pondered for a brief moment over if Yunho had kept Jaejoong locked in this penthouse for the majority of his life, whether he would be safe and sound within his arms now. But knowing the person Yunho was, Changmin was positive that the man would rather eat dirt than have to keep the one he loved in a certain captivity. As his assistant, Changmin knew Yunho appreciated the idea of having the freedom to decide on his own accord. Being the man he was, he had granted Jaejoong with that very freedom-taking him places, showing him things. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the cherished freedom came crashing down upon them, turning itself into a horrifying concept called danger.
If Changmin was in Yunho’s place, he would’ve surely made the same mistake of not keeping a leash on Jaejoong and letting him out into the vast world just as every human was permitted to do so. He believed that keeping a person in a single place would certainly tarnish their pristine spirit with darker pigment, almost like drawing curtains to a bright room where the inhabitants would look out and see a vast range of opportunities. Since Yunho had claimed that he had loved Jaejoong-and Changmin believed him quite willingly-he would not at all have kept Jaejoong locked up, and instead, offered him as much freedom as he could give him all the while keeping a small warning in the back of his mind to never let him fall into the wrong hands.
Surely that warning was kept too far in the back of his mind, Changmin thought as he unlocked the door to the vacant laboratory. As he expected, the lab had a foul stench littered throughout it, informing him that no one, not even Yunho, had occupied the room for quite some time. Changmin considered Yunho certainly did not want either Jaejoong or himself to visit the lab-for it was a clear indication of Jaejoong’s composition and a restating of the fact that no, Jaejoong wasn’t a real human, not the least bit. Manoeuvring through the files scattered across the floor and the countless documents he came upon, Changmin ransacked the slipshod lab for the file regarding Jaejoong’s blood. Trying not to step on some of the papers Yunho had jotted down on with the unrecognizable chicken-scratch of his, Changmin reached a small cabinet in the back of the room and attempted to start his search there.
Auspiciously, he was able to discover the document with ease, since the file was stored in a safe place, right where Changmin expected it to be. Looking over it for a brief moment to make sure that it was indeed the correct file, Changmin pivoted his body away from the file cabinet towards the exit of the lab, hoping he would be out of the unkempt room as soon as possible. However, before stepping a single foot in the direction of the door, Changmin was staggered by the sight of a metal chamber nearly the size of a large refrigerator. Without even being explained to, Changmin knew at once the purpose and objective of the iron chamber.
It was the place where Jaejoong had emerged at the time of his ‘birth.’
Changmin wasn’t quite sure how Yunho had simply made a human being from the remains of another, for the science of 2015 was just too difficult to understand at times. Holding a bit of fear within him, Changmin advanced towards the iron chamber in curiosity, hesitantly skimming over its smooth metal surface with his fingers. It was hard to believe-even for Changmin, who was an assistant of one of the wisest scientists in Seoul-that an actual person had emerged from within this very chamber, and ultimately became Yunho’s source of joy and now, the reason for his depression. Observing the chamber from head to toe, Changmin felt a ominous chill run up and down his spine, telling him that gaping at the chamber was certainly not the correct thing to do at the time.
Staring mainly at the structure of the chamber, Changmin was bewildered when a piece of paper appeared at the corner of his eye, startling him from his reverie. He turned his head slightly to view the ivory-coloured parchment more clearly, realizing that it had hung from a certain place on the metal chamber just how a receipt would hang upon the machine in which it was generated. Dumbfounded that Yunho had not removed the parchment that seemed to have the words ‘remove me’ written all around it, Changmin took the task upon himself to look at the parchment, if only for a brief moment. It wasn’t as if he was exceptionally nosy or annoying or something, but he could feel at the tips of his fingers that Yunho had indeed overlooked something.
Gazing down at the parchment hanging out of the chamber, Changmin’s eyes widened uncontrollably at the lurid words printed upon it. There was no doubt what he had read was the truth, but it was the believing part which served to be a problem. Reading what was on the small parchment was like reading an article on the newspaper that a murderer had abducted his own child-if he was ever to have one-for it alerted every corner of his body, even if the information on the parchment didn’t have a single thing to do with him.
The parchment that closely resembled a receipt had the following words printed upon it:
Figure: #00001
Weight: 63 kg
Height: 180 cm
Eye colour: brown
Hair colour: black
Blood type: O
Expiration date: October 18, 2015
The first six lines didn’t come close to startling Changmin at all, for they were just various stats about the experiment that stepped out of the metal chamber. It was the mentioning of the expiration date that sent him into a permanent state of shock. If such a parchment was stating facts on Jaejoong, then did Jaejoong indeed have a expiration date like a product from a grocery store-a sign to the customer that it would go bad after a certain date and a reminder to throw it out after the date specified? If the expiration date was what Changmin expected it to be, then without a doubt, something drastic would happen to Jaejoong on the day of October 18, 2015.
It was only after skimming through a paragraph located beneath the expiration date when Changmin finally understood the expiration date’s actual meaning. And in the end, he wished that instead of reading the parchment word by word, he would’ve instead left the lab behind him the instant he had finished fetching the file Yunho had requested.
The paragraph beneath the expiration date looked somewhat like this:
*important! The model created will remain alive and in perfect condition until the day it expires. When the figure expires, it heart will stop beating, putting it into an endless slumber. The expiration date for this model is October 18th, which means it will be alive for a total of eight months.
If Changmin had the power to stop his eyebrows from furrowing, he sure would without a single complaint. After reading the last paragraph however, he felt he had no control over one single nerve of his body.
The current date was September 10th-Changmin was the one who had the day of the week and of the month clearly situated in his mind-there would be a little more than a month before Jaejoong’s heart would stop beating, or as the parchment put it, ‘expire.’
Changmin had a powerful urge to tell Yunho the news immediately, since he had clearly missed seeing the parchment adjacent to the metal chamber. Nevertheless, seeing the deep dismay Yunho was in at the moment, Changmin understood perfectly that if he was to tell him the news now, it would nearly be like giving him a free ride to the gates of hell.
Changmin knew it was rather wrong of him to let the information remain unknown, but he knew deep down that within the thirty-eight days Jaejoong still had left to live, he had to inform Jaejoong that within a blink of an eye, his heart would without hesitation, stop suddenly and then refuse to beat once again.
If products expire, and Jaejoong is planned to expire as well, Changmin understood there was no reason why anyone had to pretend Jaejoong was an actual human any longer. Onto Part 2
R é s u l t a t | A l i é n é | D é s o l é | B a i g n o i r e | M u s i q u e | N o c t u r n e 1 | N o c t u r n e 2 | J a l o u x | P e s a n t e u r 1 | P e s a n t e u r 2 | r ê v e | S o u p ç o n n e u x | M e n s o n g e | F e n ê t r e s 1 | F e n ê t r e s 2 | S c i e n t i f i q u e | G â t e a u a u f r o m a g e | v é r i t é | F r a g i l e 1 | F r a g i l e 2
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